Collection is open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information
please go to following
URL .

Publication Rights

In order to quote from, publish, or reproduce any of the manuscripts or visual materials, researchers must obtain formal permission
from the office of the Library Director. In most instances, permission is given by the Huntington as owner of the physical
property rights only, and researchers must also obtain permission from the holder of the literary rights. In some instances,
the Huntington owns the literary rights, as well as the physical property rights. Researchers may contact the appropriate
curator for further information.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Starkweather Family Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Scope and Content

Correspondence between a family in Northampton, Massachusetts, and the four members who went to California during the Gold
Rush period. The first one to go was Charles Graves Starkweather (1819-1906). He was an officer in the Holyoke Company and
left on February 5, 1849 from New York aboard the
S.S. Crowell going first to Chagres, Panama, then up the river to Panama City. When they found no ship to take tham to San Francisco, their
company, along with others, bought the ship
Copiapo, hired a captain, and after a 95 day voyage arrived in San Francisco on August 14, 1849. Charles went first to look for gold
on the Yuba River, but finally settled in the Sacramento Valley. In 1851 he was joined by his brother, Alfred Starkweather
(1826-1917), and together they bought a ranch near Stockton. The next year, another brother, Haynes Kingsley Starkweather
(1822-1895), came to California via the Nicaragua route bringing his wife, Martha, and his son with him. After arriving at
San Juan, they discovered that the ship
North American, on which they were to take passage, had been shipwrecked and they were picked up by the
Monumental City instead. After a difficult passage they arrived in San Francisco and made their way to Stockton, where he opened a drugstore.
Charles made a visit to Northampton in 1854-1855 and brought his sister Roxana to California (where she met and married William
Henry Nowell). Those family members at home were: their father, Haynes Kingsley Starkweather (1788-1866); mother, Almira L.
(Merrick) Starkweather (d. 1862); brother, Rev. Frederick Merrick Starkweather (1820-1851); sister, Almira Starkweather (d.
1861); and sister, Elizabeth (Starkweather) Breck. As his father aged, he asked Charles to come home and take over the family
farm. Charles went back in 1859; Haynes and Roxana and families also returned East. There is a hiatus in correspondence from
1866-1876. The letters after this period deal chiefly with business arrangements between Charles in Massachusetts and his
brother Haynes, who had returned to California to be with his son.